


Lupinus

by teletou



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 17:38:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6204557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teletou/pseuds/teletou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>(Shoutengai AU ft. florist Sakaeguchi and courier Suyama)</i>
</p><p>5 +2 flowers in their encounters. Shouji’s first meeting with Sakaeguchi Yuuto came with a shower of cherry blossom petals, the wafting scent of osmanthus in his second year of middle school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lupinus

**1\. Early Spiketails** _(Encounter)_  
  
The wake was held on the second floor of _Florist Kinmokusei,_ a sizeable six-tatami room right above the shop that Shouji guesses is used as a workspace on other days. He catches a faint scent of osmanthus blossoms. A sweet autumn scent in every two, three inhales, peaches and persimmons when he sees instead, a drizzle of cherry blossoms petals outside the window.  
  
Sakaeguchi-san’s photograph stood framed, on a table at the front of the room. Shouji watches from the back, near the entrance, his parents with their gazes to the floor and their heads bowed, weighed down by a heavy heart. He sees white flowers, from in-between people dressed in black ― a posy of bell-shaped buds, stems upon stems loosely kept in vases lining the far wall.  
  
He wonders, if they had been flowers that Sakaeguchi-san liked.  
  
He hadn’t known her very well, never quite had the chance to meet her. His parents, though, had lost a friend. The ten, twenty people that have gathered here – they’ve lost someone dear in their lives. A friend, a sister―  
  
― _a mother._  
  
Shouji had only met him once or twice before, the _‘young boy his age’_ his parents often talks about, a hazy memory of light brown hair behind crowds passing through the shopping district.  
  
Sakaeguchi Yuuto is a boy dressed in his middle school black gakuran, expression unreadable as he faces forward. He had stood next to Shouji, about a shoulder’s width away, fingers curled tight around a single stem of press-dried osmanthus blossoms he holds close to his chest.  
  
  
 **2\. Lupinus** _(Maternal love, happiness)_  
  
“Excuse me?” Shouji calls out into the shop, knocking twice on the door frame. “I’m here for a delivery?”  
  
“Yes, I’m sorry, I’ll be right there!” He hears shuffling and a young man’s voice from behind the counter. Footsteps follow soon after, then a rustle of plastic and paper. The shopkeeper stops in front of him, cradling a large bundle of purple flowers. He steps out from under the store front canopy, pokes his head out from behind the bouquet and looks up―  
  
 _Oh_ ―  
  
“Ah, _you’re_ ―!” Sakaeguchi brings an open hand to his mouth, his eyes wide in recognition under petal-shaped shadows. “Machikado Sasabune’s… Suyama Shouji-kun, right?”  
  
He nods, slowly. So Sakaeguchi’s family is still in close contact with his. Perhaps his parents mentioned it a few times over the phone and it slipped his mind. It make sense. There’s a vague memory of stories told. It isn’t as much of a surprise than he thought it was. “Yeah, it’s been a while.”  
  
“I thought you went to study in Tokyo?” Shouji is starting to wonder if his parents had told Sakaeguchi more about him than they had told their own son about things. They certainly forgot to mention that apparently Sakaeguchi Yuuto more or less took over Kinmokusei when he had applied for a job as the shoutengai courier.  
  
Well, at least he isn’t the absent child or the phantom of a son. Nobody in the district thinks of him that way, he’s fairly sure, but he often has his doubts. Coming home for the first time after so long, engaging himself in things that _should_ have been familiar as part of a family who lives in the shopping district― he feels lost, almost glaringly out of place with how _foreign_ everything suddenly seems.  
  
It’s comforting, to have this kind of reassurance.  
  
“I did― I mean, I still do. I just thought it would be nice to go home for the holidays.”  
  
Sakaeguchi laughs, light, his voice laced with warmth. “And take summer jobs, while you’re at it?”  
  
“You know how it is.” Shouji can’t help but offer a smile of his own, the air about Sakaeguchi lets him find room to breathe, a relieved sigh as he settles into a quiet ease.  
  
———–  
  
The flowers are a delivery for a young boy in the paediatrics ward at the hospital up the main street. He’s in fifth grade of elementary, Shouji learns, when his grandmother invited him in to sit down for short chat. His face brightens when Shouji told him that the flowers were from his mother, patches of sunshine, sparkling soda water during a summer’s midday.  
  
“He doesn’t get to see her very often,” the boy’s grandmother says. She looks towards her grandson, bouncing in his seat on the bed as he coos excitedly over the curtain of large purple flowers now sitting on his bedside table, eyes positively sparkling over the vibrant colours. “I’m so glad that even this much could make him happy.”  
  
Shouji smiles, wistfully, as he thinks back to a young man surrounded by flowering plants in a little shop crammed in an alleyway in Kawagoe, a summery smile unwavering.  
  
“Yeah, I think I can understand.”  
  
  
 **3\. Kanna** _(Like young lovers)_  
  
He comes in to the shop just as an elderly man leaves, cradling a few stems of yellow kanna flowers wrapped in newspaper. Shouji nods in greeting, notes the man’s small, melancholic smile, listens to the small cheerful chime of the over-head bell when the man walks out the door.  
  
“He comes here every summer,” Sakaeguchi starts. He’s leaning back against the counter, balancing on his heels, his fingers laced together atop his lap. Shouji stands still, waits. A beat of silence, two, and the inside of the store stays quiet. A ring from a bicycle bell, echoing through the walls as it passes by, a gentle thrum of footsteps, muffled murmurs from the bustling street outside. Sakaeguchi doesn’t look at him, doesn’t seem like he would, any time soon – lips pressed thin and eyebrows furrowed. He sighs, a long shaky exhale of breath, and continues, “When he knows kannas are in season.”  
  
Shouji doesn’t answer. There’s a story behind this, he senses. One that leaves Sakaeguchi’s knuckles white, the fabric of his work apron heavily creased. He lets him take his time, for him to find the words lodged heavy in his chest.  
  
“His wife passed away, three years ago. Kannas were her favourite flowers.”  
  
 _It’s hard for him,_ Shouji gathers, from the pained expression on Sakaeguchi’s face. He turns towards him, now, but then lowers his gaze down, watching the way he fiddles his fingers, the toes of his shoes tapping against each other on their sides, separates, knocks together again. _It’s still hard for me._  
  
“Do you…” Shouji asks to the floor, a scattering of dirt under his shoes. “Do you ever feel like you hated them?”  
  
“I wonder…” Sakaeguchi laughs, a little self-loathing, a sound tinged bitter. “Maybe it would be easier, if I had.”  
  
“They _do_ remind you of her…”  
  
“They do.” His smile is softer now. Shouji sees the beginnings of a small crinkle at the edge of Sakaeguchi’s eyes. “My mother loved flowers. They made her happy.” He looks up, breathes a small chuckle towards the ceiling, head tilted and a shoulder lifted. “So I guess they make me happy.”

  
Purple canopies, a bouquet of lupinus under a stream of mid-summer sun from an open window. Shouji remembers red flushed cheeks, the young boy from a few days ago tugging on his sleeves, a heartfelt shout of _'Thank you.’_  
  
“If it helps, I think flowers can make a lot of other people happy, too.” he says.  
  
  
 **4\. Lavender** _(Waiting)_  
  
“So, I’m supposed to deliver this to _Monocolotion_?” Shouji says over the rectangular pot of lavender Sakaeguchi handed him.  
  
“The tea house down Hachimandori, yes.”  
  
“…That’s right to my house.” He might as well go home, at this point. It’s his last round of deliveries, and he’s not really looking forward to go _practically to his house_ , only to go _back_ Kinmokusei to report the delivery status, and then _zoom back home._  
  
He has a scooter, _sure,_ but it’s more the principle of the thing.  
  
Sakaeguchi shrugs. “Yes? I don’t see a problem?”   
  
Of course he doesn’t.  
  
Shouji slumps his shoulders in resignation, and walks out, placing the pot inside the front basket of his scooter.  
  
———-  
  
He pauses, an arm stretched out and his feet mid-step. He shifts his weight onto his heel, head tilted back awkwardly as he stares into the door of his family’s shop, right into his mother’s eyes.  
  
She blinks, once, twice, tilts her head.  
  
He mimics the gesture, hopes to convey his reply in Morse code-esque blinking patterns. The unknown answer to a question he did not understand.  
  
———–  
  
“Oh, wow, you didn’t have to go through the trouble!” Sakaeguchi says, opening the box of mamedaifuku Shouji had brought back. “I love your family’s daifuku, thank you!”  
  
“It’s no trouble at all.” Earlier aversions towards this delivery not withstanding. His mother had practically shoved the box at him, after an eye-roll and a scrunched nose. Her son was acting weird. After a few minutes of back-and-forth miming through the shop windows, she decided that she’ll have none of his shenanigans and sent him on his merry way with six mamedaifuku and two cups of the jelly he had made this morning.  
  
“Is this Hakuto jelly?” Sakaeguchi’s face lights up, holding up the pink plastic cup to his face for further inspection.  
  
“I wish. I’m a broke college student, remember? It’s just normal peach jelly.” Maybe he’ll be able to retain the money he makes from this job until next summer and actually get his hands on some Hakuto peaches. It would be cool to practice with them and not be _incredibly_ upset that he wasted money on them if he fails.  
  
“Did you make this, Suyama? The peaches are shaped like roses, that’s really cool!”  
  
“Ah, yeah.” Shouji looks down and away, rubs the back of his neck, tries to hide the red dusting his cheeks. “It’s really nothing special, though.”  
  
“Don’t be like that! I’m sure they taste lovely.” Sakaeguchi smiles, wide, bright. “I have great expectations of this, coming from the Suyama son that went all the way to Tokyo to study sweets.”  
  
“You’re making this too big a deal,” he mutters to the ground, embarrassed.  
  
Sakaeguchi just laughs in reply, sets the box and two cups onto the counter. “I’m just about to close up. How about you stay for a while, Suyama? We can have those sweets together.”  
  
“Oh…” Shouji blinks ― he’s been doing that a lot today ― his mind helpfully not providing an immediate proper response. “If you’re okay with that then, sure, thank you.”  
  
  
 **5\. Day Flower** _(Gentle)_  
  
It’s a summer shower, late into August on his day off. Kinmokusei is having a slow business day, Sakaeguchi opting to read a book, with Shouji counting raindrops as he sits opposite him, head resting on an arm he has stretched across the width of the counter. He was only here to drop off some extra mizu youkan his parents made, surprise rain out of nowhere wasn’t really part of the plan.  
  
Sakaeguchi offered to lend him an umbrella, but he declined. He would be lazying around at home with his feet propped up against the wall anyway  ― the rain putting a damper on any outdoor activities he might want to do  ― so he might as well stay.  
  
Besides, the company is nice.  
  
He nuzzles his face on his upper arm before lifting his head up, looks blearily at a pot of white flowers by the register.  
  
“I’ve been wondering, you have a lot of these flowers lying around…”  
  
“Oh, they’re wild flowers.” A flip of his book, a tap tap tap on the edge of the page, the flower bounces under Sakaeguchi’s touch where he decides to poke it. “You can see them anywhere on the streets, but I think they’re pretty? Thought it would be nice to pot some and decorate the shop.”  
  
“You’re decorating a flower shop with more flowers.” Shouji snickers into his arm.  
  
“I don’t have flowers on places that aren’t display spaces!” Sakaeguchi pouts, indignant. “I’d like to have more hanging from the ceiling, on the floor by the counter, some more on the counter―”  
  
“Your goal to make this place a terrarium?” His voice level, a light jab, an eye brow raised.  
  
Without even missing a beat, “Living in one sounds like a dream, actually?”  
  
Shouji shakes his head in disbelief, hides a smile in the fabric of his sleeve.  
  
  
 **6\. Cleome** _(Small love)_  
  
Shouji returns to Kinmokusei after a delivery somewhere a bit further than usual. To a young woman in Matobashinmachi, he had a pot of pink cleomes from a man that decided to remain a _'secret admirer’._ What had puzzled him, was when he returned to his scooter, he has one remaining pot of flowers and nothing else written on his delivery list. Tanii Kuzuha-san was only to receive one, and she was on the end of the list. Everyone else had be crossed out, and none of them has an order of cleomes.  
  
“Oh, huh, must be my mistake then,” Sakaeguchi says, his back facing Shouji. His voice sounds practised, oddly casual. He flips the store’s sign to _closed_ and turns towards him. “I must’ve misread the order list.”  
  
“Ah…” Shouji doesn’t know what to say, not when there’s a chance that Sakaeguchi did it on purpose. He wonders why. There was no reason to.  
  
“Since you went through all trouble, why don’t you keep it?” Shouji stares at him, confused. Was this Sakaeguchi’s roundabout way of giving him a gift? It’s needlessly elaborate, when he could’ve just given it to him. He notices the way Sakaeguchi fiddles with a loose thread on apron, the tips of his ears tinted red, suddenly finding the floor a fascinating sight. “It would look great on your windowsill!”  
  
“I-I couldn’t…” He hates himself, just a little bit, for the stutter, for not being able to meet Sakaeguchi’s eyes. Feet shuffling, weight shifting from one leg to another, Shouji bows his head down in a stilted staccato ― Sakaeguchi’s brown eyes, the shop logo printed on his apron, the wooden panel of the floor. “But if you say so then, thank you I’ll take good care of it.”  
  
His cheeks hurt, a hazy blur starts to overlay his eyesight. Shouji wonders if he’s smiling, wonders if Sakaeguchi could see the dumb little smile he gives to his shoes.  
  
———–  
  
He keeps the flower on the windowsill by his bed, waters it every morning, watches the way water droplets across the petal’s surface catch sunlight streaming through the glass pane.  
  
  
 **7\. Bush Clover** _(A love facing forward)_  
  
Autumn arrives with the scent of peaches and persimmon, two potted shrubs of osmanthus in full bloom on either sides of the flower shop door. Shouji walks in after two knocks, catches Sakaeguchi in a daze, standing in the middle of the store with his fingers curled around a stem with orange flowers.  
  
“I, uh, just wanted to say thank you, for our time working together,” Shouji says softly.  
  
Sakaeguchi says nothing for a while, an image too familiar to Shouji that he starts to worry. He shakes his head, an easy laugh falls from his mouth in an airy breath. Turning to face him, he gives Shouji a smile, head tilted and eyes crinkling. “You’re going back to Tokyo, then?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m going to the station right after this.”  
  
“I’ll miss you, honestly. It was great working with you!” Sakaeguchi tightens his hold around the stem, rocks on the balls of his feet to lean forward. “Makes me think we kind of missed out, when we were kids.” Idle, off-handed, a wistful thought.  
  
“It would’ve been different yeah.” He has to admit, he often entertains the idea, daydreams of shared childhoods, walking home together from school, a game of catch by the riverbank.  
  
“You’d come home more often, for one. Sometimes I think your parents are starting to forget their son’s face.”  
  
Shouji shoots forward, takes both of Sakaeguchi’s hands in his, looks straight into his eyes. “I’ll come home again next summer.” Hands gripped tight, promises in-between summer flowers.  
  
He leaves with the memory of red-dusted cheeks, brown eyes looking everywhere but him as Sakaeguchi tries to wiggle his hands away, stumbling across the room to get a small pot of pink bush clovers, all but shoves it against Shouji’s chest.  
  
 _'I’ll see you next summer, then.’_  
  
Shouji’s first meeting Sakaeguchi Yuuto came with a shower of cherry blossom petals, the wafting scent of osmanthus in his second year of middle school. His most treasured ones came in muggy summer dog-days, a summer break he had thought would be uneventful, myriads of flowers lining the walls, across wall-mounted shelves stacked on top of each other. He steps out from under the canopy, thinks back to the day they had met under kaleidoscopic lights, peeking through shadows onto brilliant purple petals.  
  
 _“Ah, you’re Machikado Sasabune’s Suyama Shouji-kun, right?”_

**Author's Note:**

> This was late birthday present for [bakpaocoklat](http://bakpaocoklat.tumblr.com/) over at tumblr! She's gr9 +infinity please check her page out!
> 
> I haven't written Oofuri in over seven years, so I'm super sorry if anything is off _(:3 7L)_


End file.
